


Another Adventure

by venilia



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Gen, slight crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 08:24:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venilia/pseuds/venilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Old friends don’t stand on ceremony, and I knew the Professor when he was still in knickerbockers."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Adventure

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2009 Narnina Fic Exchange

Digory was drawn from his book by the sound of arguing female voices. He smiled and tapped out his pipe, and hadn’t long to wait before the door to his study banged open and Polly Plummer was saying, “Digory, how _are_ you? You look older than ever, but very healthy!” and she kissed his cheek. 

The Macready huffed behind her in the door frame, and in a voice that clearly stated her views on brazen women barging about without civil niceties said, “Miss Plummer to see you, sir.” 

Polly waved a hand. “Never mind that, Macready. Old friends don’t stand on ceremony, and I knew the Professor when he was still in knickerbockers. You!” she turned back to Digory. “You’ve got that look on your face again. Better tell me all about it. Macready, be a dear and bring us a tea, scones would be nice, no almonds, I’ve an allergy,” and she sat down in one of the big stuffed-up arm chairs Digory kept across from his desk, and crossed her legs at the ankle, as lady-like as you please. The door clicked shut behind Mrs. Macready, and Polly waited until her footsteps could be heard making their way down the stairs. “Now,” she said, and with Macready gone she was back to being the old Polly that Digory knew from childhood instead of the lady of the no-nonsense charisma she showed the public. “I confess, I was surprised by your message. I came as straight as I could. Is there anything the matter?” 

“No, no, quite the opposite,” Digory said. “But tell me, how did you get away? I thought you were in France or Belgium, deep under cover.” 

She laughed. “You make it sound so glamorous, you know. It’s really tedious work most of the time.” 

“Most of the time.” 

“Yes, and when it’s not, I’m sure it’s terrifying. Only there’s generally too much else to bother about.” 

Digory snorted, but didn’t comment. Polly had always been brave –- braver than he, unless his curiosity got the better of him, in which case he knew himself to be an absolute idiot for throwing himself into danger, consequences be damned. 

“Oh, don’t you start,” said Polly, exasperated. “I’ve enough from my superiors. I don’t take needless risks.” 

Digory held up his hands as if to ward her off. “I never meant anything of the sort. I know perfectly well you’re not one to lose your head. And after dealing with Her there’s not many who can frighten you.” 

Here they shared a look, for even after all these years the memory of the Witch was a grim one. But just as Digory was about to tell her his news Polly seemed to recall their earlier subject, and returned to it, as old friends do. 

“At any rate,” she said, “I’m on temporary leave –- two weeks, set affairs in order, make preparations and all that. Truthfully,” she added, eyes smirking, “I planned to visit anyway.” 

Digory puffed on his pipe and looked as casual as possible and not at all curious. “Oh?” he said. 

But Polly had been there the day he’d learned that expression, and she was always better at it then he. She hummed an affirmative, giving away nothing. 

The clock chimed. One of the maids could be heard in a passage somewhere below them. Presently, Mrs. Macready creaked up the stairs and backed into the study balancing the tea tray. A little orange cake sat nicely alongside the fancy tea set that had belonged to Digory’s mother and that Macready only got out for visitors. There were no scones, but Mrs. Macready wasn’t quite petty enough to arrange for almonds.

Tea was poured. 

When his housekeeper was gone again Polly said, “Oh come, Digory. You first. I know you’re bursting to tell me. Who is it? What’s the adventure? Was there any sight of…” she hesitated, and then whispered, “you know, the Lion?” Her tone was not at all like someone whispering for fear that a hated professor might come around the corner just when he was being spoken of. Rather, it was like that of a child who is so excited about a potential Christmas visitor she can barely speak his or her name for fear the opportunity would be jinxed, and the visit missed. 

Digory wiped cake crumbs from his beard before he spoke. “Yes,” he said, finally. “There was. There was everything, and what’s more,” he leaned forward, “It was _Narnia_ , Poll. Really Narnia.” 

Polly’s face lit with joy. 

He told her about the Pevensies. He explained about the children evacuating to the countryside, about the two eldest, Peter and Susan, coming to him because their baby sister was telling stories about a land inside his old wardrobe, stories about magic witches and fauns, and about how, only days later, they’d all come to him and finished the story with the defeat by Aslan of the Witch, and their fifteen year reign, and how they were all school children again, and, by the way, they’d left his musty old fur coats behind, oughtn’t they to try to fetch them? 

Polly was quiet for a bit after he finished, and then she laughed softly. “Fetch them!” she said, “How exactly did they expect to do that? Still, still…” she leaned back in her armchair. “Narnia,” she whispered in wonder. 

Digory nodded, for he completely understood what she meant. 

“Do you think it was her? Jadis, I mean. Surely, it was,” Polly said. 

“Yes, yes I believe so. Polly, I feel horribly guilty, you know. After all, well, you remember. With the bell.” 

Polly nodded, and Digory was grateful to her for not saying anything. In his own way, he’d been worse than Edmund there. The boy might have known better than to make promises concerning his siblings to a strange woman for the sake of some false praise and sweets. Digory, however, had known in his heart of hearts that he oughtn’t ring the bell, and there had been a warning for him what’s more. 

“I wonder, I do wonder, how long the Tree you planted lasted, Digory. It must have been such a very long time in Narnia since we were there.” 

“Centuries. But time in Narnia-” 

But Polly held up a hand. “No, don’t lecture, Professor Kirke. I understood it the first time around. I say,” she said, “We were only there for the beginning of things. I wonder how they went on.” She sat back. “Fifteen years…. Imagine that. And then home. Or is this home, still?” 

Polly was not really asking Digory, but only thinking aloud. Still Digory said, “They’ve changed, of course. All of them, though I don’t think even they realize how much. Do you remember how King Frank was, before he was King Frank? And then after, when he became himself, more. Like Plato’s cave dwellers stepping out into the sunlight. That’s how they are.” 

“I remember Queen Helen more,” Polly said. 

Digory thought about Helen, and about Frank, and how he only ever thought of them with their royal titles included, and was almost surprised to remember them as a cabbie and his poor wife. Digory almost thought the same way about Peter at unexpected moments. There was an air about the boy now of responsibility and respect. The others treated him as High King, and not just eldest brother. He was still young, but in unguarded moments Digory could see the man he must have been, and would someday be again, and that man was nobler than any Digory had ever known, save King Frank. He said as much to Polly. 

“I look forward to meeting him,” she said. “And what about the two girls? What are they like?” 

“Susan mothers the others. Very sensible –- too much, sometimes, I think. She tries hard to be an adult. But she’s a gentle-hearted girl,” he said. “Lucy’s still young, and do you know, I think she always will be. I think she even was in Narnia, when she was in her twenties. Funny to say that, and think of a little girl.” He laughed. “She’s courageous as a lioness. You’ll get on famously.” 

“I like her already,” said Polly. “And Susan sounds dear.” 

“Edmund’s a thoughtful lad, clever. He’s changed so much from what he was, even more than Uncle Andrew, in some ways.” 

“Was he that horrid before?” 

“Oh,” Digory snorted, “I don’t know! Yes, he was awful, and no, the change is much more than that. I think he’s the only one who’s noticed the change in himself. He doesn’t let himself forget the ways he’s changed, or the whys.” 

“Well I should think not!” interjected Polly. “How awful to be in his place, once he knew what She was really like. And,” she said slowly, “Aslan paying the price.” 

Digory was quiet, though his mind was drawn back to the young, sunny meadow where the Lion had said that he would be sure that the worst of the Witch’s evil would fall on himself. There had been such a grave look in his great eyes. Digory had almost forgotten this, until now. 

“Aslan knew what he was doing,” he said at last. “And I’m not very surprised, how it all happened. Poetic, isn’t it?” 

“No, not poetic. That isn’t the word,” Polly said, slowly. “It’s more… just, or right, or, I don’t know, balanced. ‘As above, so below’ sort of thing, if you get my meaning.” 

Digory said that he did. 

Polly poured herself more tea. Digory watched as she stirred cream and a bit of sugar into it. Sugar was a luxury, even more so for Polly, he thought. He was glad the Macready was stood on her pride enough to measure some out of the house’s precious supply. Polly looked as if she enjoyed it. 

“And now,” said Polly, “for my news, which isn’t nearly so exciting.” 

“Oh?” asked Digory, and if he was smug at out-waiting her, then perhaps Polly deserved it.

“Do you remember that queer little box of Mr. Ketterly’s?”

“The one from Mrs. Lefay, with all the carvings on it? Yes, I still have it, buried in a cupboard somewhere, or a chest. I was never quite sure what to do with it.”

“Right, well, an associate of mine was in one of your old haunts, guess which, and he found something I think you’ll be rather interested in.”

Digory sat back, for he was fond of traveling, though he did not get to do so much now that he was middle aged.

“Don’t make me guess, Polly, or we’ll be here all night and the tea will go cold. Be a sport.”

“All right then, if you insist. The place: Egypt. The item: a curious little cup. I’m sure it’s the same wood as the trees in the Wood Between the Worlds. It certainly feels as though it’s from there. It gave me the same sort of sleepy feeling when I held it, as if nothing ever had happened, and nothing ever would happen to that cup. There’s carvings all over it. I tried to convince Chant –- that’s the man, odd fellow, but trustworthy, I think –- to part with it, but he said it was some sort of heirloom. But I did manage,” and here she fished out of her purse two sheets of paper, “to get some rubbings. Does it look the same to you?”

Digory studied the carvings at length. They didn’t look Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek. They weren't Chinese, Mayan, nor Incan, nor any other ancient civilization he could name. There were strange, twisting sort of –- letters, maybe, or icons –- and it seemed to him that the makers that would communicate with such figures must have strange, twisting minds as well.

“It does appear,” he said, “to be the same sort. Atlantean, according to my uncle.”

“Yes, I thought so. There’s a drawing on the back.”

Digory turned the paper over. Polly had captured, with a few, bare lines, the outlines of a small cup, no more than three inches high, with a lid. It was smooth and had four rounded corners, a very practical design, but ornamental as well. The shape was what bothered him, for it tickled his mind, until at last he said, “But it belongs inside the box!”

“Yes, yes that’s exactly what I thought,” said Polly. “And look here, you’ve no use for the box, and it seems a shame to have them separated from each other. I say, let’s reunite them.”

“Reunite them? Well, certainly they belong together. But will it do any harm, do you think?”

“I don’t see why,” said Polly. “I think it was only the dust that was dangerous. I thought maybe the cup was a sort of, I don’t know, a safety measure. Like wrapping a poison tipped arrow in fabric before putting it in a quiver, you see, so that whomever uses it won’t touch it accidentally. Or maybe the dust wouldn’t work when it was in the cup.”

“And what does Mr. Chant think of this?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell him. But as he was so attached to the cup, I can’t see how he’d object to being given its box. It will be a lovely excuse to travel, at any rate.”

“Aren’t you tired of traveling yet, Polly?” asked Digory, for she had hardly settled her whole life.

“Never! And I never shall be,” she replied. “Do you,” she began, and her voice was low and secret, “do you still wait for it, like I do? The call, the unexpected doorway. A way back to Narnia, or perhaps to Archenland – I always wondered about Archenland. To that world. Do you?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, I do.”

“Sometimes,” she said, “When I’m in a new passageway and it reminds me of the attic-place in our old row of houses, or when I go through a likely looking door, sometimes I close my eyes first and wish.”

He rumbled a little laugh, deep in his chest. “Or when a trainstop has a name that sounds right, or when you get turned around after a pub on a cool night and there’s something in the breeze, or when the day is just right and the letterman brings your post. Yes, yes.” 

“Are you jealous, Digs? Fifteen years.”

“No, Poll, I’m not jealous. We had a grand adventure. We saw the beginning of a whole world, and the end of another. We met Him. I’m not jealous, Polly. Just a bit wistful.”

“You’re a good man, Digory Kirke. I think I shall go on being just a bit jealous until I’ve every detail I can manage out of all four children. I need a proper taste of Narnia, and I’ll savor it for as long as I can. But here, we’re thinking too much. You always bring out the philosopher in me.”

“And you get me into far more adventures than I would find otherwise. Very well, Polly, we’ll visit your Chant fellow. It will be good to have a solution to the old box, after all this time.” He rang Mrs. Macready to take away the tea.

And that was the start of a new adventure, but that is another story to be told another time.


End file.
